Mapler
by Hyak
Summary: Four Maplers find out a way to enter into the MMORPG of MapleStory, granting them their avatars' powers in the game. This releases a curse which transfers the elements of the game into the real world. The world is then put into chaos and war. 2nd chapter.
1. 2004

_Author's Notice: Today is the one-year anniversary of the first day I started to write this story one year ago. I actually finished it, but then my entire hard drive froze and everything had to be reset. As a result, I lost everything in this story. And thus, my rewrite. It's better, anyway._

_Disclaimer: I don't own MapleStory or Wizet. If I did, would this be on FANfiction?!_

_Disclaimer 2: Some of the charaters portrayed are based on people in real life. In particular, the characters of Werty, Thiefofdarc, AgentMJ, Charyos, and EnGarde are people of their own right and have all given me permission to use them in this story._

**Mapler**

This is a story of ignorance. Of hate. Deception and violence. Greed and misery.

Friendship and love.

All caused by an online game known as MapleStory.

September 2004.

Marco Andolini was always fascinated with the trees and the sky. They were both works of nature; both beautfiul, untouched by mankind, which he considered to be unnatural. What is funny, he always thought, was how humans were once nature although they have dug their own grave into the corporate world. Humans are constantly evolving - but to where?

The sunrise was exceptionally dazzling this morning. Looking out from the car, Marco could see the great ball appear like a spinning bright wheel reaching its way up the hill, becoming bigger and higher. The clouds around the sun were manipulated into being different colors such of that of purple and pink and orange. The sun continued to rise above. Rays shone through the brown Autumn leaves and into the relection of the car window.

Down and hill and back up again, the car peacefulley drove to Marco's school, which for no apparent reason was called Connerson Junior High School. Today was to be Marco's first day in 6th grade. As the car drove up to the school, and Marco's dad wished him a day of good luck. He smiled and his son smiled back at him. As the boy made his way to the double doors were which the entrance to the school, he turned his back to the building and studied that sunrise one last time. Bright and dazzling.

Passing through the spiraling glass door, Marco instantly saw the artifical light of electricity and light bulbs attempt to shine through the hallway. Quite pathetic, he thought. He trudged his heavy bookbag on his back and carried all of that weight to where he knew his locker was. Before school had started, he toured the school and memorize the layout of the place.

When Marco was finished depositing his materials in his locker, he made his way back to the main lobby of the school where more students had arrived and sat themselves down, waiting for the first haunting bell of several hundred days' worth of curriculeum to ring.

Suddenly, there was a loud noise from up the hall. It was a like slamming sound, as if something heavy had been violently thrown onto the floor. Footsteps of an angry 6th grader stormed the hall and and a figure came into the distance and Marco could see a rather tall person, who didn't look too happy, barge his way into Marco's direction, carrying a black knapsack around his shoulder. He was wearing all black and a stylish vest. He continued to walk until he stopped at Marco's presence. He looked down at Marco's attire, blue jeans and blue shirt, and looked back up at his face. Marco looked at the boy and gave him a face, as if to say, "What are you doing?" But instead he said:

"Hello, Marco." The thin face of the person said. his eyes were a quarter closed; he looked tired and his back slouched against him.

"Hi. Your name would be?" inquired Marco. He wasn't very fond of people who introduced themselves without introducing their name first.

"Does it really matter? We knew each other in third grade anyway." His voice was low and disturbed.

"Heh, did we? I don't, erm, remember things too well." Marco smiled and this time welcomed the stranger. "So your name?"

"James Sharr. I prefer to be called by last name, though, I think it sounds cooler and more emo."

"Nice." Marco gave Sharr a friendly smile. Sharr gave him a look and his mere face translated to, "What the hell is this kid doing?"

A loud high-pitched beeping sound erupted from the speakers and it was finally time to get the school day started. In what would be the pattern of every school day, Marco turned down to the hallway to his left and went to his first period class. As he was walking down he turned around and waved Sharr goodbye, Sharr, now very small and distant in Marco's eyes, gave him another look and barely lifted up his hand.

Several more ringings of that bell and it was recess time. Marco's least favorite time of the day. It was the time when "kids could be kids" and let outside to run freely for a limited set of time. As Marco walked along the grass, he saw the opening to the forest and a large row of maple trees lined up and streched out, leaning their heads high as if they were kings of the forest. Marco smiled.

The brown leaves of the tree kept being relieved from the branches of the tree and several at a time fell off with the wind's path. It was almost as if the ground itself a sea of brown and red, and Marco was like a boat traversing it. Marco bent down and picked up one of the red leaves. It had a perfect symatrical shape, as bright red color, it didn't look decayed at all - the perfect leaf.

He stared at it and was mesmerized by it.

And then it was gone. Torn, ripped to shreads by the one who called himself Sharr. Marco wasn't quite sure how it happened, it was almost as if Sharr had appeared out of nowhere and snatched the leaf from him. Almost. Looking back on it, Marco could guess that Sharr probably ran up behind him while Marco was admiring the leaf, and thus Marco was able to notice Sharr.

In any case, Marco was not pleased at all. "Hey, what was that for?!" Marco stared at Sharr, extremely annoyed.

"Ha, it was almost like you were hailing it as a deity. Looked like you thought it had special powers. Just thought I'd show you who has the real powers here." Sharr was in a surpsingly good mood all of a sudden.

"That wasn't nice, please don't do it again, okay?"

"What you were doing was idiotic."

The bell rang, its screeching barely audbile from Connerson Field. Sharr was one of the first in the race back to school that most of the more active sutdents participated in. Marco only walked back, looking at the torned pieces of the leaf sitting there on the floor.

That year was a great school year for Marco. He met many types of new friends, met some great teachers, and, typical for him, recieved very high grades and thus, next year he would most likely be placed in very advanced classes. Throughout 2004 and into 2005, Sharr and Marco became close friends, but it was an unusual relationship. They considered each other to be friends, but they quickly found out they had nothing in common. As Sharr put it, "That's what makes the friendship interesting - we have nothing in common so we each find out about new things."

_Author's Notice: Hoped you liked it. The story starts off a little slow..._


	2. Charyos

_Author's Notice: From this point on, it would be benevolent for the reader to at least know the basics of the MapleStory game. I'll try to make it so that anyone can pick this up and read it, though._

June 2005.

Marco trudged through the double glass doors on his way to another day of school. This would be the Monday of the week before the last week. Marco sighed at the thought of it.

Upon entrance he walked to the right hallway in which Sharr was waiting for him. He stopped next to his friend, and slid his backpack to the floor, and sat down next to him.

"Can you believe school's almost over?" Marco asked, neutrally.

"Ha, yeah." Sharr rolled his neck and tested out his next joints. When he rolled his neck, a snapping noise can be heard.

Marco frowned and didn't continue on the subject. He knew Sharr would be annoyed if Marco were to talk about school anymore.

Later that day, Marco walked past of all the kids to his school bus which would take him home. The cracked sidewalk next to the school was all his feet had for surface. The wind blows against the direction he is walking; it makes the action quite difficult. The trees in the distance, even the strongest ones, swere and their branches, now filled with ripe green leaves, swayed in the wind and several of the small twigs were snapping off of their larger coutnerparts. Marco had to put up his hand in front of his face to avoid one his pet-peeves, wind blowing in his eye.

As he made it to the school bus he gave the driver a smile and walked past some of the obnoxious kids to a person he was very familiar with. He sat down next to his sister.

Marco's sister, Lizzie, was in a good mood today, apparently. Marco figured it was the reason everyone else was in a good mood, and that reaon was the day itself.

"Hey, Lizzie, I have something to tell you!" one of the kids sitting in a seat ahead of them stood up on their knees on their seat and turned back to face the siblings.

Lizzie just looked at the girl. Her hazel eyes glared at her, expecting a foul comment or something nasty, or even stupid. Her eyebrows lowered down as did her face.

The girl didn't react. "So, you're going out with Jacob?" The comment was obviously meant to be mocking and brutal. She giggled, and her supporting friends followed along with the theme.

"No." Lizzie's voice was now devoid of tone.

"Yeah you do!" The girl was beginning to get louder, almost to the point where she was the only one talking. "You like him, eww!"

Marco as well as Lizzie didn't even know a person named Jacob.

Lizzie finally spoke: "You know, sometimes I wonder why you're so obsessed with my love life. Is is because... you yourslef don't have one? And you must leech your talons onto and suck away at MY personal life, because YOUR pathetic life doesn't have any?! Do you secretely look up to me? Or is it because you don't have thoughts of your own and instead must use mine to fuel both yourself AND your audeicne?" With each sentence, Lizzie's voice became louder and more stern, more fierce.

Marco chuckled. He loved it when Lizzie would make an embarrassing or acusing speech to someone that annoyed them. Lizzie gave the girl a mocking smile and the girl just turned around, looked away, and changed the subject to her friends. Both Marco and Lizzie, however, hated literally every person on the bus.

After a few stops, the school bus reached their house, which was a decent, nice-looking middle class home. They walked up their short driveway and entered their house. The door almost wouldn't shut because of the wind that blowing into the direction of the door hinge, so the door was being manipulated to stay open. With some force, however, the door closed.

Marco and Lizzie went up the stairs and into the living, where there was a table and another table with a computer on it. Marco went over to the table, complete with a pencil and paper, a let his bookbag fall onto the table, the table shaking from the violent force. He unzipped the bookbag and took out a math book and a folder. As he set himself up to do his math homework, he turned up his head to look out a window to see the trees shaking.

"I think we should turn off all the electricity in the house. I think I remember watching on the TV that there's a tornado that should hit us," said Marco, not even turning up his head to look at Lizzie, but from the corner of his eye he could she Lizzie was sitting on the computer, doing something or another with the computer.

"Lizzie?" Marco looked up his head, surprised to see that Lizzie was playing a computer game. Marco sat down his materials and walked over to where Lizzie was sitting.

Lizzie's fingers moved gracefully across the keyboard, one hand laying near the arrow keys and the butons to the left of those, the other near the left side of the spacebar and the keys around. They worked in conjunction with one another.

The game running on the computer screen was a weird one, Marco thought. It featured a little chracter with an oversized head compared to the body, wearing normal clothing and with a small small in one hand. It was a girl with spiky hair, red boots, and red shorts. Next to her right there was stronger looking person, which a name under him said "Charyos". He was wearing silvre armor along with a sword that, Marco thought, looked like a pirate cutlass, and a helmet that only showed the sprite's brown eyes.

"Uh, we really do have to shut down the electricity unless we want the computer to malfunction..." Marco stammered.

Okay, okay, give me a minute." Lizzie payed most of her attention to the screen. Her hands worked together again and she pressed the arrow keys as her sprite moved to the right next to Charyos. She pressed trhe space bar key and she jumped. The Charyos sprite's face turned into a smile and he continued to hop up and down along with Lizzie.  
Marco was getting bored with such tedious action in such a serious situation as to this. "Lizzie, seriously! Turn it off!"

"Whatever, butthole." The mouse on the game screen moved onto the other sprite's avatar and right clicked. A small window popped up and displayed the character's name, along with whatever clothing they were wearing. Also on the screen there was a "Fame" or "Defame" option which Marco didn't have a clue about. Lizzie clicked on a button which said, "Request Trade". Another window popped up and Lizzie's avatar was displayed on the right, while Charyos' was on the left. In a textbox which was to the right of the window, there was a typing and chat space. Lizzie's hand once again moved across the keyboard to manipulate the computer's very actions.

"I g2g, sorry" Lizzie's avatar, named AgentMJ, said.

"aww o.o"

"sorry"

Such meaningful conversation, Marco thought.

Suddenly the trade window closed and another notification window came up and said, "The trade has been cancelled by request". Lizzie clicked OK and the screen went back to the overworld along with AgentMJ and Charyos. Charyos' avatar put on a pixelated frowning face, and started to move left and right, in quick succession.

"lol, so what do I do to go?" AgentMJ said. Her words appeared in a text box above her avatar's head.

"lol!" Charyos walked to the left, where AgentMJ was, and made a stab motion to her. To Marco's surprise, the stab didn't deal any HP to her.

"you go down to the bottom right and there's a thing called menu" Charyos entered in one "sentence". He then spoke again: "click on it you should see a thing thatll end the game"

They did so and the screen closed down to black. After a few moments the computer's desktop opened up again and there was a new icon on the screen. It showed a small mushroom that had an orange top and a small door on the stalk. Underneath it read: "MapleStory".


	3. Werty

There never was a "tornado", rather, just very severe winds that had knocked over some of the weaker trees and the chairs outside in the lawn. To Lizzie's dismay, Connerson was open. It was to Marco's enjoyment at the time.

The passage of the cold front had left behind a lot of fog, and as Marco was driven to school that day, he wasn't abvle to see the trees or the sun rising or even the lamp posts that were supposed to illuminate to the road. As Marco left his car and shut the door, he took a deep breath and sniffed the clouds on the ground. It was steam created artificially, but it was natural. It was an air conditioner blasting into his nostrils. Well, Marco thought, at least I know what a cloud smells like.

And then Marco felt an urge when he walked in.

School. surprisingly, felt like it was simply a drone wasting his time that day. All Marco wanted to do was get home and play that strange game his sister was playing. Words came out of the teachers' mouth but for once, he wasn't paying attention.

And then it ended.

As would be her coming ritual, as soon as Lizzie came home, she sat down on the computer chair and started up the game. Like yesterday, Marco deposited his bookbag on the table and started to unload the materials he would need for that night's homework. He took out his math book, flipped it open, and saw the paper he put in there earlier that day when he had started the homework. He took out his pencil from his pocket, tapped it to make the lead come out, and settled down. Now... x times 4 equals y - 5... damn, Marco always hated math.

And suddenly, blasting music came from an unknown direction and Marco could feel the vibration of the obnoxiously loud sound. Marco's head jumped up and he lost all of his utter concentration on his work and the music continued. Frantically, still dazzed from being woken up from his thought, Marco scanned the room and saw what had caused the music. The computer. Lizzie sat at the computer desk, on some sort of log-in screen for the MapleStory game. The music must have been the game, obviously. Lizzie secretely smirked as she raised the volume even louder using the keyboard.

"Lizzie, I'd appreciate it if you were to not play the music, please."

"For what reason? I'm doing my thing and you're doing yours."

"Because homework is more important than some stupid game."

"Actually, dumbo, this game is pretty fun." Lizzie always loved calling Marco names.

"But please play it on the computer downstairs and not here, if you MUST turn up the volume." Marco attempted to get back to his work.

"Ew, no, it takes a long time to download."

"You have to download it?"

"Well no duh."

"Then do it downstairs, Lizzie!"

"Maybe if you tried playing it you'd know it's a good game and worth much more than stupid, dumb homework. 'Least I didn't get any homework today."

"Fine, I will." Marco slammed his book shut and stood up, facing Lizzie's challenge. Lizzie got up from his computer and they both went to the computer on the bottom floor of the house and they went to the website, and went to the top navigation bar where it says download, and they downloaded the client. While the game was downloading, Marco went back upstairs to get his math book and brought it back down with his pencil, and started once again to the do the work.

In about twenty minutes the client and Marco were both finished. Marco called Lizzie, who had went back upstairs to play the game, and she walked back down there to actually install the game on the computer.

Once that was finished, the mushroom icon on the desktop was double-clicked, and the game started up. But then they remembered that Marco had to make a new account on the actual website to sign in. Once they had done that, Marco logged in on the same screen Lizzie had distracted him with the music, and signed in. He logged in on his account and looked at the two worlds availible: one was called Scania and the other, Bera. Lizzie spoke up, saying that the one she and Charyos went to was Scania. Marco complied and made a new character there, called Werty.

Werty arrived on Maple Island, a tutorial place for the beginners. Lizzie went back upstairs. Suddenly, on Marco's screen, a window popped up in the lower right corner, saying that AgentMJ had placed a buddy request for him. Marco clicked the "o" choice, hoping it was accepting, which it was. At the bottom of the screen, in orange, a line read that said, "lol noob."

Werty explored his way through Maple Island, leveling up on the snails and payed the 50 meso fee to get off the island and into the main world. When he had done so, AgentMJ was waiting for him and she put on a smiling face. Then AgentMJ and Werty went around the town they were in, a sailor-themed place called Lith Harbor, and went to the map from it, which was another map with snails. A few hours later, Werty was around level 8, and he went back to the town and saw a Tour Guide NPC. He clicked on it and it directed him to a completely different place, a shady looking city with fog in the background and it it looked run-down. Werty had no idea what had happened, but then at the textbox in the bottom of the screen, someone spoke, whose name was Charyos.

"lol so you wanna go to perion?"

"sure"

Marco moved Werty to the right to the edge of the huge map and saw Charyos, complete in the armor he saw him in yesterday, and some other person who Maroc didn't pay attention to. How ironic, Marco thought, that I would meet Lizzie's friend here.

Charyos and his friend jumped up a few of the brick steps and went into a portal; Werty followed and the next map was a completely different place than the ambigous city place they were just in. The portal led to a mountain-western type place, with a different style of music and mountains, cliffs, and smoke. This is what all of the following maps were like. Charyos continued to go on with Werty following him, literally right behind the sprite. Charyos' face at one point became an expression that, when typed, would look like "O.o".

Eventually, they reached a map where there were green mushrooms along the bottom floor. Charyos' sword cut through most of them, but towards the right side of the map he jumped, leaving the low-leveled Werty to die of the green mushroom. A tombstone came flying down from the top of the screen down to where Marco's avatar was. It was now a ghost floating a circle pattern around the tombstone. Marco clicked an "OK" option and Werty was spawned in yet another city which was like the maps he was in. A mini-map in the upper-left corner of the screen read that the city was Perion.

Werty explored this city - which was like a two-dimensional mountain range with huts and western Indian-like characters around. Since Marco had no idea what to do, he found a taxi near the bottom of the map, and payed the fee to return to the only town he had known, Lith Harbor.

Marco returned to the map next to the harbor where AgentMJ was still training. Then the same Charyos sprite entered the map, smiled at AgentMJ, who promptly returned the action. Werty walked up, and Marco, laughing, started to type.

"Heh, hi, Charyos. )"

"lol O.O"

"Er...I followed you around all over the place, in case you hadn't noticed."

"i noticed xD"

"lol" Marco typed.

"so, lizzie, this is your brother?" Charyos turned around to face Lizzie, who was trying to bring down a Red Snail, the toughest of the snails.

"unfortunately" Marco wasn't surprised Lizzie would say that.

"lol so werty, what class will you become at level 8 or 10?"

"Well, I don't know. I guess I'll become a Warrior, just like you!"

"lol thats nice :o" Charyos entered. He then entered his next statement. "do you have least 35 into str?"

Marco checked his skill points, none of which he had applied. He saw where the STR stat was, and put all of the skill points he had acquired from leveling into it.

"Now I do. lol" Werty said, the sprite smiling.

"lol"

For the rest of the day, they all were training on the snails in that map. Werty had reached around Level 8, and AgentMJ reached Level 8 as well, deciding to become a magician. Charyos led both of them to the town where AgentMJ would fufill that task, a forest-like village called Ellinia.

When both Lizzie and Marco had gotten off the computer to eat their dinner, they both tried to speed up the process of eating to get back to playing the game. At the same table in which Marco used to do his homework, he brought his plate of pizza and sat down, taping the pizza with a piece of paper. Lizzie look, annoyed and confused at the same time.

"Why do you always do that, Marco? It's weird."

"Heh, it's to get the grease off the pizza." Marco smiled. "Maybe you should, too."

"Ew." Lizzie made a disgusted face.

Marco changed the subject. "So, do you like MapleStory better than Neopets?" Both siblings had been addicted to Neopets in the summer of 2004, always logging onto the website and checking out their pets.

"Yeah, I guess," said Lizzie, flatly.

"I would think so too. This game seems better. It'll probably addict the souls out of us, though." Marco smiled again and reached up for another bite of pizza. The silence continued for a while, except for the chewing sound made by Marco's mouth. He spoke again. "So, who exactly is Charyos?"

"My friend."

"No, I mean, WHO is he? Where'd you meet him?" Marco held a slightly more dramatic edge in his voice, to try to make her talk.

"Neopets." Bored of the conversation, Lizzie got up to serve herself dessert, chocolate ice cream.


End file.
